1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique used for a microscope and in particular to a technique for alleviating a workload required for an observation by using a microscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
Microscopes are widely used for researches, examinations, et cetera, in the fields of biology and industry. In an examination carried out by using a microscope, commonly exercised is to provide a plurality of object lenses with different magnification ratios and observe an observed specimen by moving a motorized stage for moving the specimen within a plane perpendicular to an observation light path from the direction of an object lens. In such an observation, a screening is carried out by setting an object lens at low magnification ratio so as to cover the entirety of the observed specimen. Then, it is followed by returning to a point in which an abnormality has been discovered and that for which a recording is desired in the observation specimen, examining these points in details by changing over to an object lens of a higher magnification ratio and recording the observation data.
As an example related to a microscope suitable to such an observation, a Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 07-333522 has disclosed a microscopic image remote observation apparatus enabling an observation by displaying an image of an attention region in a motion image on one hand and, on the other, an image of the peripheral region including the aforementioned attention region, in a still image.
And, as another example, a Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-309768 has disclosed a microscope system capable of reproducing a setup state of each part without repeating a cumbersome adjustment work.
In order to return to the point of which an observation record needs to be saved by a use of an object lens of a high magnification ratio in the observation specimen after carrying out a screening observation with the object lens of a low magnification ratio in the screening process as described above, the point needs to be searched by operating the microscope system again. If a point in need of recording is selected because a plurality of such points exists, the operation of the microscope gives a large amount of load on the operator. Meanwhile, a screening observation of the entirety of the specimen carried out by an object lens of a low magnification ratio needs to be scanned for the entire area of the specimen for preventing a missed region of observation, and therefore it makes a work requiring a large length of time. Moreover, if a quick decision is required or a large amount of specimens is required to observe at once, a capability of recording the point quickly and easily is very important.